Fiery Mcnown Eager To Torch Doubters

Cade McNown, the Bears' No. 1 draft choice in the 1999 draft, told Bears coaches that he hasn't had time for a girlfriend in college. He is an intensely religious young man who does not foist his faith on others.

"You're not going to get a quote from the Bible every interview," said Al Borges, UCLA offensive coordinator and McNown's coach the last three years. "In the three years I coached him I never heard him use a cuss word. He's a devout Christian kid who's not going to shove it down your throat."

But he will shove a football down it. McNown guided UCLA to 20 consecutive wins at one stretch of his college career, and brought the Bruins from behind in nine of them. Against Oregon last season, he was so ill that he twice had to leave the pregame meeting during the scripting of the first 15 plays. In the game's third quarter, he vomited on the field, then completed nine of his next 13 passes for 202 yards and a touchdown. His moment of sickness was captured in a prominently played photograph that still follows him.

"The funny thing is, people will mail it to me and ask me to sign it: `Leave it all on the field--Cade,' " McNown said, laughing.

Against Arizona last season, with UCLA trailing 28-24 late in the third quarter, McNown drove the offense to four touchdowns in six minutes.

"He figures out some way to beat your butt, and that's what you're looking for," said Bears personnel chief Mark Hatley.

McNown's NFL potential has been questioned because of doubts over his arm strength, even though he has thrown 70-plus yards in workouts. His three-quarters throwing motion has been criticized. His height, at an eighth of an inch under 6-1, has been cited. His toughness has struck some as a liability, that he is perhaps too tough for his own good because he thinks he can do just about anything with the football in his hand.

Yet he played well enough to finish third in the Heisman Trophy voting this year and win the MVP award at the Senior Bowl. All of which has caused McNown to doubt the doubters.

"No one was really questioning any of those things when I was helping out at UCLA," McNown said. "We were winning a lot of games, and nobody was saying anything about that. I think the thing that'll happen is that if I go to Chicago and start winning, that'll be forgotten about pretty quickly."

Little about McNown has been ordinary, even his problems. A dinner in New York landed him in an FBI investigation because of suspected mob ties of one of his companions (the matter was quickly dropped).

Part of McNown's appeal to the Bears was his development and anticipated ability to play sooner than most rookie quarterbacks. Indeed, at UCLA he went through what amounted to two freshman years, learning the system of coach Terry Donahue his first year, then another, more intricate one under Borges after a coaching change.

The Bears scouted McNown during the last couple of seasons. They met with him at the March combine in Indianapolis. Hatley checked him out again in a West Coast visit in late March. The Bears brought him in with a number of college prospects for a dinner and interviews earlier this month.

Through those meetings, the Bears believed they learned more about McNown than even films had shown. And it was the difference in their decision to draft him.

"The first thing I was impressed with was his poise and his touch on the deep ball," Bears offensive coordinator Gary Crowton said. "But at the combine, I had a chance to interview him. We got to talking football, and the conversation went right into the depths of football. It was very impressive to me, that here was a young player who sounds like a coach.

"We were talking about a couple of plays, and mentally he was conveying back to me how the play was read, what they did--not just his responsibility, but what they were trying to do philosophically to attack the defense. I was impressed with that and marked that down. I think it'll be fun to coach him because he's so into what's going on around him with the game."

McNown is the first left-handed quarterback drafted by the Bears since Will Furrer, now on his sixth NFL team, in 1992. But it is another Bears quarterback that McNown has been compared with more often.

"Jim McMahon took them to a Super Bowl so if I can do some of the things he did, I'd be thrilled," McNown said, laughing.

The Bears do not expect McNown to be an instant starter. Neither does McNown. But then again . . .

"I expect myself to be fully ready to step in and run the offense by the time camp comes around," McNown said. "That's going to take a lot of work, but I look forward to doing that."

In his first couple of years there McNown was relying more on just being able to run around and make plays, said Bears tackle Chad Overhauser, a UCLA teammate of McNown's. But as he learned the offense he became a better leader, stopped leaving the pocket.

"He would leave the pocket and we would continually tell him, `You need to sit in the pocket, we're blocking well for you,' " Overhauser said. "But because he's such a natural athlete he can run so well and throw on the run so well.

"He's enthusiastic, he loves to go out and play, and loves to go out and practice. He's not one of those guys who considers it work. He considers it joy."